


the Kahala at sunset

by Ashling



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/F, Finally giving Claire the vacation she deserves, Finally giving Elektra the affection she deserves, Finally giving MarauderCracker the fic they deserve (sorry about that), Flirting, Fluff, Food, Hawaii, dialogue. far far too much dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 09:07:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14053617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashling/pseuds/Ashling





	the Kahala at sunset

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MarauderCracker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarauderCracker/gifts).



In planning  _ sorry-I’m-technically-dead _ vacations, as in literally everything else he had done in his life, Matt had clearly not thought things through. Claire appreciated the attempt, of course. When she found the cheerfully multicolored letter in her mail congratulating her on a free trip to Hawaii, she didn’t have the heart to throw it away. She’d never bought a ticket for the raffle she’d supposedly won, but then, he’d been all fists and brute force, rarely subtle.

A few days in, having slept for almost sixteen hours straight, eaten at eight different places, and climbed a defunct volcano, Claire concluded that the entire effect of the trip was just making her miss Hell’s Kitchen more. Hawaii, despite all its warmth and splendor, was missing people.

She felt unexpectedly homesick for a feeling more than any specific person: the feeling of swinging by to see her mother on her way home from work; the feeling of running into one of the nurses she’d worked with and shopping for laundry detergent together because neither of them had time for coffee but they couldn’t stop laughing; the feeling of unwrapping a thank-you present from one of her patients and finding a lopsided mug with the letters “your the best” scrawled across it; the feeling of New York wrapped round her in a continuity of people that meant she was rarely completely alone. In Hawaii, the air was viciously clear of any familiar smoke and her fellow tourists were all strange strangers. 

Nonetheless she could feel her weary body relaxing slowly, and when she looked at herself in the mirror in the morning she didn’t have dark circles under her eyes, so she chose to tolerate  the isolation and stay for the full nine days. 

On this particular morning, she had her breakfast out on the hotel patio. Looking over the the lush greenery of the gardens and nibbling a scone slathered with apricot preserves, she fell into a reverie.

The peace was interrupted by a quiet sound of disgust coming from the table to her left. Turning, Claire saw a dark-eyed woman bending over her plate a little, the napkin at her nose too late, and a bit of blood already staining her white shift. Before Claire could turn away again and pretend politely that she hadn’t seen it, the woman said, “At least it didn’t get the bacon,” with a wry smile, and in the time it took for Claire to smile back, she noticed that the woman’s golden skin had an unusual pallor and shine. 

Claire could barely resist a beautiful woman in mild distress, and she definitely couldn’t resist a mystery. Although this woman’s nosebleed had just begun, she already looked like she was in mild hypovolemic shock. So Claire turned her chair and leaned forward. “At least there’s that,” she said, handing over a travel pack of Kleenex. 

“Thanks.” 

They sat in a surprisingly comfortable silence for a few minutes, as the woman’s nosebleed petered out. 

Presently a little yellow and white bird came along, perched on the patio railing, and looked at the two of them inquisitively. Upon not being shooed away, it hopped closer, onto the edge of the table, and cocked its tiny head to the side.

“Go ahead, I’m full,” Claire said. It didn’t move, so she pushed her plate to the edge of the table. It pecked at one crumb, then another, then hopped onto the plate and started eating up the remaining bits of scone in earnest, paying special attention to the apricots. She smiled. “Don’t make yourself sick.”

“Is that your superpower, then?” the woman said. Suddenly there was a French lilt in her voice that Claire hadn’t expected, and she was sitting straighter in her chair.

“What?” Claire said.

“Your superpower, is it talking to birds?”

“I don’t have a superpower.”

“Don’t you?”

Claire looked her over, taking it all in; the fine linen and the gold bangle were all par for the course at this resort, but the muscles were beyond merely toned and her crimson lips were out of the ordinary. Claire gambled. “Did you come here on a raffle ticket too?”

The woman met her gaze evenly. “Yes.”

“Hm.” Claire sat back in her chair and settled in for the conversation. “Is it fun?”

“Is what fun?”

“Having a superpower.”

The woman checked her nose, found that the bleeding had stopped, and threw down the last scarlet tissue. “Do I look like I’m having fun?” she said wryly.

“Hard to tell.”

“You’re a trained nurse.”

“I did notice you’re this close to dying. But for some people, that’s not an obstacle.”

“I’m having more fun now, I’ll admit,” the woman said with a sly smile. She held out a hand. “Elektra Natchios.”

“Claire Temple,” Claire said, though they both knew she didn’t need to.

Leaning back in her chair, Elektra looked back towards the hotel. Sometimes all the wealthy tourists and their loud happy children made Claire feel she was sticking out like a sore thumb, but with Elektra there, elegant and imperious, it was as if she could see a different world for just an instant. A world in which the families inside were aquarium fish, and Elektra, and by extension Claire, were observers.

“Is the blonde around?” Elektra said.

“Who?”

“K-something. Three’s a pattern, Claire,” Elektra said dryly. “It’s almost insulting of him, actually. I may purchase him a gift of equal value when all this is over, something solid gold, then hit him over the head with it. Perhaps that would help him understand what an insult is. K. K. Kathy--”

“Karen? I haven’t seen her around, and even if I did, that wouldn’t be a pattern, because I wouldn’t count. We never even dated, and the last I saw him was a long time ago.”

“So you didn’t fuck him, you have no superpowers, and you’ve never worked in his little law firm. Yet here you are with a raffle ticket on memories alone.” Elektra leaned forward, said, quite deliberately, “You must be exceptional.” Her dark eyes appraised Claire.

Claire wasn’t sure whether to be insulted, flattered, or attracted to her. Maybe all three? “I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” she said. “Even heroes bleed.”

“How poetic.”

“I mean, he needed some kind of medical help from someone who wouldn’t ask questions. That doesn’t make me special.”

“What about Jessica and Luke? Danny?” Elektra scoffed. “Surely that off-brand Tony Stark has enough money to build himself a private hospital or two.” 

Claire raised an eyebrow.

Elektra held up her hands, palms out, as if to show she was unarmed. “I merely like to keep tabs on the city.”

“You like New York, then?”

“It doesn’t make my top twenty. There’s ten better cities in France alone.”

Claire made a sound of mock exasperation. “I thought we were going to be friends.”

“We still are.” Elektra looked serenely over the gardens below, the palm trees and the reflecting pool. “Is it too early for wine, do you think?”

“It wouldn’t be if we were in New York.”

The corner of Elektra's mouth quirked up, but she said nothing, letting the space between them lapse into a silence somehow both charged and comfortable.

A phone alarm went off, and Claire reached for her pocket before she realized it wasn’t hers.

“I should go,” said Elektra. She rose very slowly, without a wobble. All that grace saved her from looking weak, but Claire still had to fight her instinct to get up and help.

“Did your ticket come with caveats?” Claire asked instead.

“No, but something about seeing doctors, they say, helps one avoid dying.”

“Then definitely go.” Claire watched her make her way slowly back to the hotel. It wasn’t till Elektra had her hand on the door that she called, “You know when you could have some wine?”

Elektra glanced over her shoulder. “The Kahala, at sunset, table for two?”

“Works for me.”

Elektra slipped inside and Claire closed her eyes, luxuriating in the sunlight. With a date for the night, perhaps she should have felt anxious, but this beautiful, powerful, strange woman was more like an anchor than anything else, a danger that tasted familiar. And yet Elektra was distinct, too; she'd kissed women before, but never one that painted her lips blood red and enjoyed almost dying. Claire wondered what that long dark hair might feel like beneath her fingertips. She hoped she'd find out.


End file.
